90 degrees of deals

Daily update

The US administration seems to be retreating from the idea of “90 trade deals in 90 days”. With less than a week to go, they have a half-hearted agreement with the UK and a de-escalation with China, and little else. The idea is that interim agreements will be sought, retaining the 10% tax on US consumers of foreign products. Uncertainty about future product-specific taxes appears to be making it more difficult to do deals.
The US Senate continues to debate plans to keep an unsustainable fiscal deficit. Two Republican senators oppose the budget, and three opponents could stop the bill passing. Markets assume a broadly unchanged deficit, offering no fiscal stimulus, but the redistribution of income implied in the proposals has economic consequences.
US and Japanese business sentiment data are released, and are unlikely to offer much insight in an uncertain world. The US job openings data is unfortunately based on one of the least reliable official surveys in the US—accurate data would be useful, as firms’ hiring intentions amidst policy uncertainty do matter.
Food prices drove up the UK BRC shop price index. Almost every non-food sector is in deflation, which argues against the suggestion that government policy is behind higher prices.